Off the Reservation: Republican Party (1856 – 2010)
By Jed Morey (Publisher of Long Island Press) on Mar 24th, 2010
http://www.longislandpress.com/2010/03/24/off-the-reservation-republican-party-1856-2010/I don’t care much for the health care bill or the process it went through, but I applaud the intent. Rather than dissecting the bill I would like to offer a quick message to the Democratic Party. Then, if you don’t mind, I would like to speak privately with my party, the Republican Party.
Democrats—please refrain from referring to this bill as an “overhaul” of the system. While it is indeed reform, it doesn’t cure the inherent flaws in the system. No, I haven’t read all 2,500 pages of the bill yet, but cutting Medicare reimbursements and treatment options, while increasing public access to pharmaceuticals, goes against my beliefs. I’m also incredulous at the Congressional Budget Office’s suggestion that this will reduce the deficit. Please don’t insult American intelligence. Having said that, providing the opportunity for 32 million Americans to visit a doctor for the first time outweighs any issues I have with this bill. Just call it a start, not an overhaul.
Now onto my dear fellow Republicans. (And to the guy who clips out my column and scribbles ironically, “Hey Asshole, don’t you know any better words?” whenever I curse, the answer is yes. But today I just can’t seem to find them.)
Republicans are shouting and spitting like a bunch of fucking hyenas as they clamor for face time in the media. They’re filling our inboxes, vandalizing our social networking profiles and polluting the airwaves with venomous messages rebuking the Obama Administration over health care. HEALTH CARE! My fellow Republicans are tearing this nation apart over providing medical care for those less fortunate. Not bank bailouts, war, or wasteful pork spending— Health care. Really?
The behavior among elected Republicans and the dimwitted TV pundits who are whipping America into an absolute frenzy is the worst thing about this bill and has led me to question my long-standing affiliation with the Republican Party. For a moment, I thought it was me; that maybe I had changed and lost touch with Republicanism. So, in seeking to refresh my recollection of what this party stands for, I logged onto the GOP home page.
What I found was as pathetic as it was cartoonish. A complete embarrassment. The site opens to a fiery red screen with Nancy Pelosi, fists and teeth clenched in a fit of rage against a backdrop of flames, with the words “Fire Pelosi” in bold letters emblazoned on the screen. This buffoonery doesn’t torch Nancy Pelosi—it’s Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Abraham Lincoln who are torched by the flames of dissent and hatred that now embody this once-great party.
Going deeper in the site only serves to highlight the confusion within the GOP. It lists the accomplishments of the Republican Party since its inception and its own core values of today. It proudly claims responsibility for freeing the slaves, establishing Howard University and outlawing the Ku Klux Klan. It touts Republican leadership in writing the 19th Amendment, passing two civil rights acts and ending racial segregation in Little Rock. The list spans two centuries of achievements such as these and others that today seem more in alignment with the Democratic Party, like establishing Yellowstone National Park, building the federal highway system and authoring welfare reform.
This is the party I belong to.
But the current “platform”—if you can call it that—lists only six ideals. The power of the individual, voluntary giving, limited government, low taxes, less regulation and national strength. That’s what it says, but what it practices is hate, because hate sells when the chips are down. Well, here’s the newsflash: The strong Republican individual who enjoyed low taxes, limited government and less regulation didn’t voluntarily give a hand to the 32 million people under eight years of Bush Jr., four under Bush Sr. and eight under Reagan. And the eight under Clinton? We Republicans killed health care then too. So, no. The “voluntary giving” portion of the agenda hasn’t worked.
This bill is what we get for not doing something sooner. Now the Republican Party is calling for true health care reform and vowing to still kill this bill? NOW? Too bad, so sad. Too little, too late. Everything that is wrong with this bill is the fault of every loser in office with an (R) next to his or her name.
From the realm of beyond ridiculous comes the conservative movement. The growing number of so-called “Tea Party” activists are hunting their own, outing those they call Republicans In Name Only, or “RINOs.” They have taken their vituperative agenda to the streets, hurling racial epithets at democratic lawmakers and preaching angry messages to Fox’s ravenous cameras. Television ratings and voter ire are feeding off one another and creating a vortex of hatred that has gone viral and beyond.
There is nothing grand about this old party that preys only on the enmity of the populous. There is nothing admirable or principled about fear mongering. Where are the inspired solutions that made this party great?
I’m calling it. I hereby officially pronounce the Republican Party dead. The GOP died suddenly on March 23, 2010 from a diseased mind and heart. It was 154 years old. The son of Ronald Reagan, grandson of Theodore Roosevelt and great-grandson of Abraham Lincoln is survived only by bastard stepchildren who have squandered the family fortune and sullied its good name.
A plague on all of your tents, I say. I renounce my allegiance to those who cloak themselves in the shroud of Republicanism without understanding what it means to be so. I stand firmly by the glorious list of accomplishments from which these whores have divorced themselves and await the day a new breed of Republicans rediscovers the true meaning behind the core values of this party. Until then you have lost my vote of confidence and, more importantly, my vote. When you do return to your collective senses and stand for something other than hatred and dissent, I will be there, because a real elephant never forgets.
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